


8/02/2019: Work of Art

by pop_incognito



Series: 365 Drabbles [39]
Category: Free!
Genre: Established Relationship, Exhibitionism, M/M, Nude Modeling, Paint Sex, Painting, Slight AU - Nao Paints Recreationally, Voyeurism, post-DTF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-30 23:48:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17838350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pop_incognito/pseuds/pop_incognito
Summary: Nao took up painting in high school to take his mind off missing Natsuya - this is sonotwhere he imagined that hobby leading.





	8/02/2019: Work of Art

**Author's Note:**

> I am very much aware that it is NOT the eighth of February anymore, however due to Valentine's Exchange and also hitting a home run on Run to Paradise updates, my """daily""" drabbles got pushed to the back bench. Expect a barrage over the next few days as I desperately try to catch up. Please come chat to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/IncognitoPop) or drop into my [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/IncognitoPop) to throw me ideas for future oneshots, because I accidentally deleted this month's prompt list! Hope everyone enjoys this mildly smutty, super long drabble :P

Nao took up painting in his first year of high school when his retinal detachment left him unable to participate in any of the sports he enjoyed beyond managing Soufukan’s swim club after school. It gave him something to do once he had finished his homework other than tossing his phone between his hands and wishing that Natsuya would call him. He missed his – his what? his best friend? his _boyfriend?_ – his Natsuya. Nao spent his evenings in his lonely house painting his fish, painting the cherry blossoms on the water’s surface in the pool. He even paints Natsuya once, the shadowy silhouette of him sprawled across his bed, burning garnet eyes the only true colour in the piece.

That particular painting gets put away in the back of Nao’s wardrobe, never to see the light of day until he began packing his room up to move to Tokyo, Natsuya helping Nao sort all of his belongings out. “What’s this?” Natsuya had asked, pulling the dusty canvas out from where it had been resting against the wall. “Hey, this is really good!” He brushes a finger over the line of his own shoulders. “Is this me?”

Nao’s face turned redder than the heart plushie in his hands, a gift from Natsuya that had arrived in the mail from America just in time for Valentine’s Day the year before. “Yes,” he had answered honestly, never really able to keep secrets from Natsuya. “I missed you, so I painted you…”

Natsuya had set the painting down gently so he could join Nao on the bed. “I didn’t know you could paint,” he’d said, and then they had gotten rather distracted from packing Nao’s belongings away, just adding more clothes to the pile building on the floor.

Painting continued to be one of Nao’s favourite recreational hobbies, especially when Natsuya’s stints overseas became longer and more frequent, and Natsuya often indulged Nao in it, sending him expensive paints and brushes from brands that aren’t sold in Japan. He also keeps offering to pose for Nao whenever he’s home – mostly naked, much to Nao’s chagrin. His painting is supposed to be a relaxing thing he does at the end of a stressful day, and there’s no possible way he can relax when faced with a naked Natsuya right there in front of him.

Nao has a _list_ of things better than painting that he could do with naked Natsuya. A real, physical list he had once emailed to Natsuya just to wind him up. At least one of those things still involved using paints, of course.

During winter break of his third year of university, Nao signs himself up for some of the recreational painting sessions being held in the university art studios. Natsuya is off… somewhere in the world, not due back for another three or four weeks. He had been quite vague on his last FaceTime call, mainly because said call had very rapidly devolved into some serious not safe for work exhibitionism on Nao’s part that had led to them both missing engagements they were supposed to be going to. Phone sex aside, Natsuya had actually called to say that he was getting on a plane going somewhere, but had failed to actually mention where he was headed this time before he started asking Nao to strip for him.

That was two days ago, and as Nao has heard neither a confirmation of arrival, nor a notice of disease, death, or injury, he is assuming that Natsuya caught a long flight and is still passed out from jet lag.

Returning to the matter at hand, with several weeks between then and Natsuya’s scheduled arrival back in Japan, Nao had signed up for the painting sessions to give him something to do that wasn’t mediating dating drama between the members of his former middle team swim club. Nao swears up and down that Asahi had actually called him ‘mom’ the previous week, whining to Nao on the phone about how Asahi’s nephew loves Kisumi more than he loves Asahi, and that that apparently doesn’t bode well for their future ‘when’ they have their own kids. Nao had to hang up then, because the thought of Asahi and Kisumi with their own child makes him feel excruciatingly old, and also made him miss Natsuya so much that his first painting session had yielded yet another somewhat ethereal portrait of said boyfriend. This time, Natsuya is naked under a stream of water and surrounded by the forest green tiles of the shower in Nao’s apartment, with just enough touches of pearly white steam to stop the painting being completely indecent.

Nao had turned bright pink under the praise of the woman overseeing the studios while they were in use, her skilful hands dancing over the still-tacky canvas as she had gushed about his colour use and eye for body proportions. When she asks about his reference, Nao can’t bring himself to talk about just how intimately he has studied his reference material.

He leans the painting against a wall in his apartment and sends a picture of it to Natsuya with a string of angry face emojis, and a short message about how it’s all Natsuya’s fault that Nao is lonely and horny and has the skill to paint naked portraits of his absent boyfriend in public places.

 _why were you painting in public?_ Is Natsuya’s response several hours later, which leads to Nao explaining about the painting sessions at the university. Natsuya finishes the conversation abruptly with a short, _just got an idea brb babe_ , and then never came back, so Nao crawled into bed after switching his phone off and taking out his frustrations on his adult stash that he keeps in his bedside drawer.

Natsuya isn’t ‘right back’ until three days later, when Nao is packing his stuff up to go back to the art studios. Nao is setting his stuff up in his chosen corner of the studio when the same woman who had praised him so highly the other day announces that she’s had someone volunteer to model for life portraits if anyone is interested. “Nao,” she catches the sleeve of his jacket as he slides it off. “Do you want to join us?” she asks him, gesturing to the three other people who said that they would like to work with a live model.

“…Sure,” he replies after a beat, and collects his things up again, glad he hadn’t started anything yet. He follows the supervisor and other artists into the next studio over, and nearly drops everything he’s carrying in shock. “When you said ‘be right back’, I didn’t think you meant _this_!” he squawks, scrambling to keep everything in his arms as he stares at Natsuya.

His boyfriend is sitting sprawled in a chair in the middle of the room wearing nothing but a fluffy robe and a cunning smirk. “Hey, darling,” Natsuya greets with a wink. “ _Miss me_?” he purrs, voice dripping with innuendo.

If Nao doesn’t just spontaneously combust in a plume of lust and mortification, he’s going to string Natsuya up by his balls and throttle him to death. “Aren’t you supposed to be swimming somewhere right now?” Nao grinds out, his entire face feeling hot and his jeans just a little too tight. He’s glad he decided to wear a long shirt and a long button-up cardigan under his jacket that day.

After the awkward explanation that, yes, he and Natsuya do know each other, Nao gets himself under control and sets his paint up, glaring daggers at Natsuya over the top of his easel. When their supervisor gets Natsuya to pose, draped fetchingly over the back of the chair with all those gorgeous swimming muscles thrown into sharp relief, and _then_ asks Natsuya to drop his robe, Nao nearly loses it right there on the spot at the sight of that smooth, tanned skin and rippling arms that haven’t been around Nao in nearly three months.

Never let anyone say that Natsuya is the only half of their relationship who is easily swayed by sex.

Natsuya knows exactly what he’s doing, maintaining smoky eye-contact with Nao for over three hours, his smirk getting wider and wider as h watches the way Nao squirms in his seat, paint brush quivering whenever it isn’t touching the surface of the canvas.

Nao is starting to think that he’s not the only exhibitionist between the two of them.

The sessions are only recreational, so there’s no pressure on any of them to actually finish their pieces, so the supervisor takes a few quick photos of Natsuya’s post for any of them who want to continue their paintings in the following sessions, presuming that Natsuya won’t be there. Probably an accurate guess considering Nao is planning on dragging Natsuya into his bedroom and not letting Natsuya leave until Nao can’t walk straight enough to stop him.

“So, how’d it turn out?” Natsuya asks, tugging his robe back on once he has been given permission to move, darting across the room to wrap his arms around Nao’s shoulders. Nao nearly tumbles over the edge right then and there as Natsuya presses a hot kiss to the side of his neck. “Did you have fun?”

“And you say I’m evil, you dick,” Nao groans, squeezing his thighs together and ducking his head, lilac bangs swinging down to cover his red-flushed face. “That was so mean!”

Natsuya laughs like Nao has just told the funniest joke, and rakes his eyes over the still-wet painting. “Hot _damn_ , do I really look that good?” he preens, and brushes Nao’s hair to the side so he can lean around and capture Nao’s lips in a searing kiss. He takes a break from tormenting Nao to genuinely say, “Babe, you’re really good at this. Why didn’t you do an arts degree?”

Nao surges forwards, chasing Natsuya’s lips with paint-covered hands, leaving smears of dark blue and dove grey on Natsuya’s cheeks. “Because painting is a hobby I picked up to distract me when you’re not home,” Nao confesses, his forehead resting against Natsuya’s. “I wouldn’t want to ruin it by getting graded on it.”

“That’s fair,” Natsuya pants before turning as serious as Natsuya is capable of being given the situation. “Hey, you’re not mad at me right? I wanted to give you a fun surprise, but I didn’t really think about it very much, and-”

Shutting him up with another furious kiss, so forceful their teeth clack together, Nao shakes his head, leaning up a little higher to whisper, “I came in my pants, you utter demon. Take me home and then take responsibility.”

They’re almost too impatient, Nao haphazardly throwing his things in his bag, and they almost leave without Natsuya’s clothes. The painting does get left behind, but Nao makes sure to come back and retrieve it the following day. He might have… taken some liberty with Natsuya’s pose to suit his own tastes, and he doesn’t particularly want to share that image with the rest of the world.

When they get back to Nao’s apartment, Natsuya scoops Nao up and practically throws him down on the bed, clothes, bag, and all. “Clothes off, paints out, we’re gonna do number seventeen,” he commands, sending thrills down Nao’s spine at the tone.

“Number seventeen?” Nao questions, raising an eyebrow but still doing as instructed, peeling his clothes off and pulling a handful of paint tubes out of his bag. “Number seventeen of what?”

“Your list of ‘Things Better Than Painting to Do With Natsuya’,” Natsuya explains, untying his robe and throwing it dramatically across the room. “I hope you’re not too attached to these sheets, because they’re about to get _messed up_.”

After removing his glasses, Nao throws a tube of magenta paint at Natsuya and lays back on the bed, running his hands over his chest invitingly. “Fuck the sheets,” he says, voice husky. “Mess me up.”

“Your wish is my command,” Natsuya growls, taking the cap off with his teeth and crawling up the bed. As he cups one hand under Nao’s head, dragging him up by the hair to claim his mouth in a bruising kiss, Natsuya squeezes the tube and starts creating his own masterpiece across Nao’s pretty, pale skin.

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment and leave kudos, and don't be shy to come chat with me!!


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